WHAT TEACHERS OF SCIENCES IN CHILE THINK AND HOW THEY USE ICTS. ANALYSIS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN THINKING AND PEDAGOGICAL-CURRICULAR PRACTICE

Different investigations point out that beliefs are an important aspect to consider when designing and implementing the curriculum [1, 2, 3]. In the Chilean educational context the relationship that exists between teaching and thinking of the science teacher( biology, physics and chemistry) has been described, especially in relation to what to teach (content), how to teach (methodology) and what and how to evaluate( evaluation) [4, 5]. Along these lines, it has been researched how the relationship between thinking and the teaching practice of teachers is, in regard to ICT. Specifically, what type of ICTs are used in class and in practical activities, with what purpose and what the relation of these aspect with what teachers think is in respect to the ICTs. The main findings show that science teachers think that the use of ITs is adequate and beneficial to the teaching and learning of science, however, for both the design and development of their classes, it has been observed little use. In fact, teachers believe that ICTs must be used for the teaching of science, but in class the most used resource is the textbook [6]. All in all, we can point out there are differences, between what teachers think and what they do in class [7].

We consider that these findings are useful, for both improving the teaching of science and the mathematic and to improve the initial teaching training of high school teachers who will be teaching science. In this context, we present part of a wider investigation originated in teachers in service, related to initial teaching training of high school science teachers (Fondecyt 11130150), proposing instruments to explore thinking and pedagogical-curricular knowledge of future teachers. For this, with a mix methodology, we worked with a sample of 303 teachers in service and, besides we administered a Likert like questionnaire and varied quantitative techniques to analyze the information gathered. The results show that the thinking of teachers tends to be constructivist and is organized in different levels according to the curricular aspect being tackled (contents, methodology and/or evaluation). Nevertheless, in regard to the teaching practice they show a traditional tendency and practice. We consider that our findings have implications on the training of teachers, especially when the current context reveals the development of pedagogical competencies for the teaching of science.

S. Contreras, J. Torres (2015) WHAT TEACHERS OF SCIENCES IN CHILE THINK AND HOW THEY USE ICTS. ANALYSIS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN THINKING AND PEDAGOGICAL-CURRICULAR PRACTICE, INTED2015 Proceedings, pp. 7958-7965.